How To Use Pay Per Click (ppc) To Do Fast & Easy Marketing Research That Guarantees Results


by Jon Cook - Date: 2010-09-17 - Word Count: 437 Share This!

Although you may be extremely active in your search engine marketing, it's a good bet that you still do some form of offline, or traditional, marketing and advertising. Do you do display ads in newspapers, magazines or other print media? Do you have brochures or other materials that you give to prospects?

If so, you have a tool you're not using that will tell you exactly what your offline materials should say to get those prospects to your door. Why would you not put this research machine to work immediately? And what is this magical machine?

All we're talking about here is your AdWords account. By not putting your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns to work for you, you're sacrificing a huge advantage that should be yours. Used right, PPC can be your personal marketing research firm. So, not that you know what and where it is, what do you do?

How Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Testing Works

First, figure out what exactly it is you want to test. You can only test 1 thing at a time unless you're prepared for more complex techniques. For now, stick to 1 important element so you get the purest results in the fastest of time. Some possibilities to test:

- 2 Offers, such as '1/2 Off' Vs 'Free Shipping'
- Possible Headline language or phrasing
- Benefit language, Example: 'No More Worries' Vs 'More Free Time'

The key is to follow testing guidelines strictly; meaning only the element(s) you're testing should be different. Everything else, including the use of lower or upper case, the use or non-use of 'www' in the display URL must be the same in the 2 ads. Why is this so important?

The only way you're going to get the true result, the real winner, is if the competition is restricted to those elements that are your options for use. If anything else is varied between the 2 ads you are tainting any and all data you might get from the test. That means you know absolutely nothing at the end of the road, except how not to do a marketing test.

If you do follow this rule you will come away with an almost guaranteed winner that can be used immediately in your print ads, brochures, business cards and just about anywhere else you're putting out your message.

A last, but very important, point. What if you want to test something that just won't fit in the tight fit of an AdWords ad? That's when you move on to testing longer, larger elements on landing pages, instead of in the paid search ads themselves. That's for another time and another article, though.

Related Tags: pay, marketing, seo, internet, google, search, online, web, research, engine, optimization, sem, ppc, adwords, per, paid, campaign, click

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